Complete Works of Joseph Conrad (Illustrated) (77 page)

It looked-as if it would be a long passage. The south-east trades, light and unsteady, were left behind; and then, on the equator and under a low grey sky, the ship, in close heat, floated upon a smooth sea that resembled a sheet of ground glass. Thunder squalls hung on the horizon, circled round the ship, far off and growling angrily, like a troop of wild beasts afraid to charge home. The invisible sun, sweeping above the upright masts, made on the clouds a blurred stain of rayless light, and a similar patch of faded radiance kept pace with it from east to west over the unglittering level of the waters. At night, through the impenetrable darkness of earth and, heaven, broad sheets of flame waved noiselessly; and for half a second the becalmed craft stood out with its masts and rigging, with every sail and every rope distinct and black in the centre of a fiery outburst, like a charred ship enclosed in a globe of fire. And, again, for long hours she remained lost in a vast universe of night and silence where gentle sighs wandering here and there like forlorn souls, made the still sails flutter as in sudden fear, and the ripple of a beshrouded ocean whisper its compassion afar — in a voice mournful, immense, and faint....

When the lamp was put out, and through the door thrown wide open, Jimmy, turning on his pillow, could see vanishing beyond the straight line of top-gallant rail, the quick, repeated visions of a fabulous world made up of leaping fire and sleeping water. The lightning gleamed in his big sad eyes that seemed in a red flicker to burn themselves out in his black face, and then he would lie blinded and invisible in the midst of an intense darkness. He could hear on the quiet deck soft footfalls, the breathing of some man lounging on the doorstep; the low creak of swaying masts; or the calm voice of the watch-officer reverberating aloft, hard and loud, amongst the unstirring sails. He listened with avidity, taking a rest in the attentive perception of the slightest sound from the fatiguing wanderings of his sleeplessness. He was cheered by the rattling of blocks, reassured by the stir and murmur of the watch, soothed by the slow yawn of some sleepy and weary seaman settling himself deliberately for a snooze on the planks. Life seemed an indestructible thing. It went on in darkness, in sunshine, in sleep; tireless, it hovered affectionately round the imposture of his ready death. It was bright, like the twisted flare of lightning, and more full of surprises than the dark night. It made him safe, and the calm of its overpowering darkness was as precious as its restless and dangerous light.

But in the evening, in the dog-watches, and even far into the first night-watch, a knot of men could always be seen congregated before Jimmy’s cabin. They leaned on each side of the door peacefully interested and with crossed legs; they stood astride the doorstep discoursing, or sat in silent couples on his sea-chest; while against the bulwark along the spare topmast, three or four in a row stared meditatively; with their simple faces lit up by the projected glare of Jimmy’s lamp. The little place, repainted white, had, in the night, the brilliance of a silver shrine where a black idol, reclining stiffly under a blanket, blinked its weary eyes and received our homage. Donkin officiated. He had the air of a demonstrator showing a phenomenon, a manifestation bizarre, simple, and meritorious that, to the beholders, should be a profound and an everlasting lesson. “Just look at ‘im, ‘ee knows what’s what — never fear!” he exclaimed now and then, flourishing a hand hard and fleshless like the claw of a snipe. Jimmy, on his back, smiled with reserve and without moving a limb. He affected the languor of extreme weakness, so as to make it manifest to us that our delay in hauling him out from his horrible confinement, and then that night spent on the poop among our selfish neglect of his needs, had “done for him.” He rather liked to talk about it, and of course we were always interested. He spoke spasmodically, in fast rushes with long pauses between, as a tipsy man walks.... “Cook had just given me a pannikin of hot coffee.... Slapped it down there, on my chest — banged the door to.... I felt a heavy roll coming; tried to save my coffee, burnt my fingers... and fell out of my bunk.... She went over so quick.... Water came in through the ventilator.... I couldn’t move the door... dark as a grave... tried to scramble up into the upper berth.... Rats... a rat bit my finger as I got up.... I could hear him swimming below me.... I thought you would never come... I thought you were all gone overboard... of course... Could hear nothing but the wind.... Then you came... to look for the corpse, I suppose. A little more and...”

“Man! But ye made a rare lot of noise in here,” observed Archie, thoughtfully.

“You chaps kicked up such a confounded row above.... Enough to scare any one.... I didn’t know what you were up to.... Bash in the blamed planks... my head.... Just what a silly, scary gang of fools would do.... Not much good to me anyhow.... Just as well... drown.... Pah.”

He groaned, snapped his big white teeth, and gazed with scorn. Belfast lifted a pair of dolorous eyes, with a broken-hearted smile, clenched his fists stealthily; blue-eyed Archie caressed his red whiskers with a hesitating hand; the boatswain at the door stared a moment, and brusquely went away with a loud guffaw. Wamibo dreamed.... Donkin felt all over his sterile chin for the few rare hairs, and said, triumphantly, with a sidelong glance at Jimmy: — ”Look at ‘im! Wish I was ‘arf has ‘ealthy as ‘ee is — I do.” He jerked a short thumb over his shoulder towards the after end of the ship. “That’s the blooming way to do ‘em!” he yelped, with forced heartiness. Jimmy said: — ”Don’t be a dam’ fool,” in a pleasant voice. Knowles, rubbing his shoulder against the doorpost, remarked shrewdly: — ”We can’t all go an’ be took sick — it would be mutiny.” — ”Mutiny — gawn!” jeered Donkin, “there’s no bloomin’ law against bein’ sick.” — ”There’s six weeks’ hard for refoosing dooty,” argued Knowles, “I mind I once seed in Cardiff the crew of an overloaded ship — leastways she weren’t overloaded, only a fatherly old gentleman with a white beard and an umbreller came along the quay and talked to the hands. Said as how it was crool hard to be drownded in winter just for the sake of a few pounds more for the owner — he said. Nearly cried over them — he did; and he had a square mainsail coat, and a gaff-topsail hat too — all proper. So they chaps they said they wouldn’t go to be drownded in winter — depending upon that ‘ere Plimsoll man to see ‘em through the court. They thought to have a bloomin’ lark and two or three days’ spree. And the beak giv’ ‘em six weeks — coss the ship warn’t overloaded. Anyways they made it out in court that she wasn’t. There wasn’t one overloaded ship in Penarth Dock at all. ‘Pears that old coon he was only on pay and allowance from some kind people, under orders to look for overloaded ships, and he couldn’t see no further than the length of his umbreller. Some of us in the boarding-house, where I live when I’m looking for a ship in Cardiff, stood by to duck that old weeping spunger in the dock. We kept a good look-out, too — but he topped his boom directly he was outside the court.... Yes. They got six weeks’ hard....”

They listened, full of curiosity, nodding in the pauses their rough pensive faces. Donkin opened his mouth once or twice, but restrained himself. Jimmy lay still with open eyes and not at all interested. A seaman emitted the opinion that after a verdict of atrocious partiality “the bloomin’ beaks go an’ drink at the skipper’s expense.” Others assented. It was clear, of course. Donkin said: — ”Well, six weeks ain’t much trouble. You sleep all night in, reg’lar, in chokey. Do it on my ‘ead.” “You are used to it ainch’ee, Donkin?” asked somebody. Jimmy condescended to laugh. It cheered up every one wonderfully. Knowles, with surprising mental agility, shifted his ground. “If we all went sick what would become of the ship? eh?” He posed the problem and grinned all round. — ”Let ‘er go to ‘ell,” sneered Donkin. “Damn ‘er. She ain’t yourn.” — ”What? Just let her drift?” insisted Knowles in a tone of unbelief. — ”Aye! Drift, an’ be blowed,” affirmed Donkin with fine recklessness. The other did not see it — meditated. — ”The stores would run out,” he muttered, “and... never get anywhere... and what about payday?” he added with greater assurance. — ”Jack likes a good pay-day,” exclaimed a listener on the doorstep. “Aye, because then the girls put one arm round his neck an’ t’other in his pocket, and call him ducky. Don’t they, Jack?” — ”Jack, you’re a terror with the gals.” — ”He takes three of ‘em in tow to once, like one of ‘em Watkinses two-funnel tugs waddling away with three schooners behind.” — ”Jack, you’re a lame scamp.” — ”Jack, tell us about that one with a blue eye and a black eye. Do.” — ”There’s plenty of girls with one black eye along the Highway by...”

— ”No, that’s a speshul one — come, Jack.” Donkin looked severe and disgusted; Jimmy very bored; a grey-haired sea-dog shook his head slightly, smiling at the bowl of his pipe, discreetly amused. Knowles turned about bewildered; stammered first at one, then at another. — ”No!... I never!... can’t talk sensible sense midst you.... Always on the kid.” He retired bashfully — muttering and pleased. They laughed, hooting in the crude light, around Jimmy’s bed, where on a white pillow his hollowed black face moved to and fro restlessly. A puff of wind came, made the flame of the lamp leap, and outside, high up, the sails fluttered, while near by the block of the foresheet struck a ringing blow on the iron bulwark. A voice far off cried, “Helm up!” another, more faint, answered, “Hard-up, sir!” They became silent — waited expectantly. The grey-haired seaman knocked his pipe on the doorstep and stood up.’ The ship leaned over gently and the sea seemed to wake up, murmuring drowsily. “Here’s a little wind comin’,” said some one very low. Jimmy turned over slowly to face the breeze. The voice in the night cried loud and commanding: — ”Haul the spanker out.” The group before the door vanished out of the light. They could be heard tramping aft while they repeated with varied intonations: — ”Spanker out!”... “Out spanker, sir!” Donkin remained alone with Jimmy. There was a silence. Jimmy opened and shut his lips several times as if swallowing draughts of fresher air; Donkin moved the toes of his bare feet and looked at them thoughtfully.

“Ain’t you going to give them a hand with the sail?” asked Jimmy.

“No. If six ov ‘em ain’t ‘nough beef to set that blamed, rotten spanker, they ain’t fit to live,” answered Donkin in a bored, far-away voice, as though he had been talking from the bottom of a hole. Jimmy considered the conical, fowl-like profile with a queer kind of interest; he was leaning out of his bunk with the calculating, uncertain expression of a man who reflects how best to lay hold of some strange creature that looks as though it could sting or bite. But he said only: — ”The mate will miss you — and there will be ructions.”

Donkin got up to go. “I will do for ‘im some dark night; see if I don’t,” he said over his shoulder.

Jimmy went on quickly: — ”You’re like a poll-parrot, like a screechin’ poll-parrot.” Donkin stopped and cocked his head attentively on one side. His big ears stood out, transparent and veined, resembling the thin wings of a bat.

“Yuss?” he said, with his back towards Jimmy.

“Yes! Chatter out all you know — like... like a dirty white cockatoo.”

Donkin waited. He could hear the other’s breathing, long and slow; the breathing of a man with a hundredweight or so on the breastbone. Then he asked calmly: — ”What do I know?”

“What?... What I tell you... not much. What do you want... to talk about my health so...”

“It’s a blooming imposyshun. A bloomin’, stinkin’, first-class imposyshun — but it don’t tyke me in. Not it.”

Jimmy kept still. Donkin put his hands in his pockets, and in one slouching stride came up to the bunk.

“I talk — what’s the odds. They ain’t men ‘ere — sheep they are. A driven lot of sheep. I ‘old you up... Vy not? You’re well orf.”

“I am... I don’t say anything about that....”

“Well. Let ‘em see it. Let ‘em larn what a man can do. I am a man, I know all about yer....” Jimmy threw himself further away on the pillow; the other stretched out his skinny neck, jerked his bird face down at him as though pecking at the eyes. “I am a man. I’ve seen the inside of every chokey in the Colonies rather’n give up my rights....”

“You are a jail-prop,” said Jimmy, weakly.

“I am... an’ proud of it, too. You! You ‘aven’t the bloomin’ nerve — so you inventyd this ‘ere dodge....” He paused; then with marked afterthought accentuated slowly: — ”Yer ain’t sick — are yer?”

“No,” said Jimmy, firmly. “Been out of sorts now and again this year,” he mumbled with a sudden drop in his voice.

Donkin closed one eye, amicable and confidential. He whispered: — ”Ye ‘ave done this afore’aven’tchee?” Jimmy smiled — then as if unable to hold back he let himself go: — ”Last ship — yes. I was out of sorts on the passage. See? It was easy. They paid me off in Calcutta, and the skipper made no bones about it either.... I got my money all right. Laid up fifty-eight days! The fools! O Lord! The fools! Paid right off.” He laughed spasmodically. Donkin chimed in giggling. Then Jimmy coughed violently. “I am as well as ever,” he said, as soon as he could draw breath.

Donkin made a derisive gesture. “In course,” he said, profoundly, “any one can see that.” — ”They don’t,” said Jimmy, gasping like a fish. — ”They would swallow any yarn,” affirmed Donkin. — ”Don’t you let on too much,” admonished Jimmy in an exhausted voice. — ”Your little gyme? Eh?” commented Donkin, jovially. Then with sudden disgust: “Yer all for yerself, s’long as ye’re right...”

So charged with egoism James Wait pulled the blanket up to his chin and lay still for a while. His heavy lips protruded in an everlasting black pout. “Why are you so hot on making trouble?” he asked without much interest.

“‘Cos it’s a bloomin’ shayme. We are put upon... bad food, bad pay... I want us to kick up a bloomin’ row; a blamed ‘owling row that would make ‘em remember! Knocking people about... brain us indeed! Ain’t we men?” His altruistic indignation blazed. Then he said calmly: — ”I’ve been airing yer clothes.” — ”All right,” said Jimmy, languidly, “bring them in.” — ”Giv’ us the key of your chest, I’ll put ‘em away for yer,” said Donkin with friendly eagerness. — ”Bring ‘em in, I will put them away myself,” answered James Wait with severity. Donkin looked down, muttering.... “What d’you say? What d’you say?” inquired Wait anxiously. — ”Nothink. The night’s dry, let ‘em ‘ang out till the morning,” said Donkin, in a strangely trembling voice, as though restraining laughter or rage. Jimmy seemed satisfied. — ”Give me a little water for the night in my mug — there,” he said. Donkin took a stride over the doorstep. — ”Git it yerself,” he replied in a surly tone. “You can do it, unless you are sick.” — ”Of course I can do it,” said Wait, “only... “ — ”Well, then, do it,” said Donkin, viciously, “if yer can look after yer clothes, yer can look after yerself.” He went on deck without a look back.